Restaurant 1: dance theatre for a day

On Tuesday 31 July, CERN’s Restaurant 1 transformed into a dance studio for the duration of a public rehearsal. The performers from the dance troupe of Geneva choreographer Gilles Jobin, CERN’s current artist in residence, presented their 2011 creation, Spider Galaxies. The result: a voyage of bodies suspended between art and science.

Just two months after the choreographer’s “Strangels” invaded the library, the same bodies returned to take over another iconic CERN space: Restaurant 1. While a black floor covering was spread over the dance floor, bordered on three sides by the glass partitions overlooking the terrace, the four dancers warmed up. Gilles Jobin, the first prize winner of the “Collide@CERN” competition held last March in the dance/performance category, briefly introduced the dance that would follow, called Spider Galaxies. The piece, created in 2011, features four dancers moving to music by Cristian Vogel and Carla Scaletti - a soundtrack in which the LHC data is translated into an audible signal.

Several dozen intrigued spectators took their places on chairs that had been lined up for the occasion to face the impromptu stage. The bodies started to intermingle and to mutually repel and attract each other. Two women and two men defined a new energy-intense universe in the space.

At the end of the rehearsal, the spectators had a chance to extend their experience by mingling informally with the artists. During the exchange, Gilles Jobin said how thrilled he was to be working in this universe of science, which inspired him “to see the movement of the body and to think about matter in a different way”.

Within CERN, his team will continue its “fundamental research” into motion until the end of September. The final presentation of their work will take place in November 2012.

For those who can’t wait until the next public encounter with this project, their experiments in movement can be followed on their blog.

by Caroline Duc